Bullets into Water: The Sorcerers of Africa

by Richard Petraitis

Across Africa, purported sorcerers and sorceresses are killed by rural
mobs or executed by governmental decree for the practice of magic. For centuries, a belief
in magic has pervaded the continent of Africa, despite the often tragic consequences of
magical thinking. As many African nations struggle with independence and modernization,
civil wars sparked by ethnic hatreds have raged in lands where the belief in men of magic
remain strong. During different periods of history, warfare has been waged by soldiers
trusting the supernatural protection bestowed on them by sorcerers and self-appointed
prophets. The reality, called battle, has provided students of history with accounts of
the tragedy of spells and charms when employed against modern military arms. The Colonial
Era and our present century dashed the sorcerer's claim to exercise control over nature,
with the sad dramas of Africa's battlefields.

George Ivan Smith, author of the book, Ghosts of Kampala (a
biography of Idi Amin Dada, the former dictator of Uganda), has provided an account of a
battlefield tour in what is now the country of Zaire. Under the escort of local guides,
Mr. Smith observed the corpses of tribesmen sprawled around him, but was told by his
companions that the now prostrate men had their ears to the ground listening to the talk
of the enemy. Furthermore, these dead tribesmen would return to their compatriots with
secrets from their foe, according to the guides, because they had been protected from
danger by "Allah Water." This was a magic water given by local sorcerers to
protect warriors from bullets and even from nature's fury -- thunderbolts rained down by
the gods.1 One hundred years earlier, this belief in magic water had led to the
routing of tribal armies across Southern Africa, the Congo, and Uganda. This water,
sometimes called "Yakan Water," was laced with a hallucinogen from the daffodil
species which gave many African warriors feelings of elation, excitement, invincibility,
and false courage; all undone by the physics of bullets traveling through the air.2

In April 1819, the British Colony on the Cape, Grahamstown, was menaced
by a large Xhosan army. The Xhosan prophet, Nxele, had promised the Xhosan king, the
Ndlambe, the ability to turn white men's bullets to water. Due to the mystic's promise,
the Xhosan army was ordered into harm's way and engaged the British colonial army in a
rare pitched battle. Believing in the powerful magic of Nxele, they advanced in massed
columns against their enemy. The British, lined-up in formation, opened a withering fire
with their muskets and artillery and decimated the Xhosan ranks, led personally by Nxele.3
One hundred warriors died, and nearly a thousand were wounded. The British army then
invaded Xhosan territory and accepted, at a later date, the surrender of Nxele.4
A belief in magic had brought about a military disaster for the Xhosan people.

The Xhosa continued to grapple with the British army. In 1850, a sickly
youth named Mlanjeni, "the Riverman," claimed it was necessary to cleanse the
Xhosa nation and to make war on the whites. Mlanjeni promised the Xhosan warriors immunity
from the white men's bullets, and sent them into battle with a twig from a plumbug bush to
ward off evil (including bullets).5 Battlefield tragedy followed; hundreds were
killed when the Riverman's protection was found to be nonexistent. By 1853, the Xhosa were
exhausted by the British army and resistance came to an end. However, the belief in those
professing magic power persisted.

After the signing of the Berlin Act of 1885, the European land grab
accelerated throughout Africa, causing desperate resistance by African peoples. During the
summer of 1905, Germany's newly acquired colony of East Africa became the scene of revolt,
using magic to defeat the white man. A spirit medium claimed to be possessed by a snake
spirit named Hongo. The medium's name was Kinjikitile Ngwale, and he began to call himself
Bokero.6 Bokero insisted the people of that region were called to drive the
Germans out. The medium gave his followers war medicine to turn German bullets into water.
This powerful war medicine turned out to be water (maji in Swahili) mixed with castor oil
and millet seeds.7 Thus the Maji-Maji rebellion was born!

Followers of the movement, armed with a poor arsenal of cap guns,
spears, and arrows, moved to attack German strongholds across the colony. Maji warriors,
wearing millet stalks around their foreheads, marched toward the German garrisons for
battle. Several thousand Maji warriors, led by a spirit medium (not Bokero), marched
toward the Reich's compound at Mahenge. As soon as the rebels were within firing range,
soldiers, backed by two machine guns, laid down a lethal fire. Row upon row of Maji
warriors marched toward the guns, but were cut down.8 Hundreds were killed or
wounded before breaking off the engagement. The battle at Mahenge was the zenith of the
Maji-Maji rebellion. However, the Ngoni people decided to join the revolt with an army of
five thousand.9

A German force armed with machine guns marched from Mahenge and
approached the Ngoni camp. On Oct. 21, 1905, the German soldiers attacked, and the whole
Ngoni army retreated in disarray as their warriors threw away their magic bottles and ran
away crying, "The maji is a lie!"10 The German army was victorious
against the rebels. Surprisingly, Kinjikitile Ngwale (Bokero) is a hero today for the many
people of Tanganyika -- including the great warrior tribe of the Ngoni!

While World War I erupted across Europe, in Uganda another prophet
arose named Rembe. He came to give the Lugbara people divine power by the drinking of a
special water from a pool in Lugbara territory where a snake with a human head gave
oracles. Rembe promised special protection for his followers who drank the "Yakan
water." The water was to provide protection against European rifles, and cult
followers believed Rembe's magic could cause the guns to only fire water.11 In
1917, the authorities quickly arrested and executed Rembe. But the Yakan water cult
persisted among the Lugbara. After World War I ended, unrest broke out in Uganda, spurred
by belief in the magic water. The Yakan revolt of 1919 resulted in the deaths of a dozen
policemen, but the authorities acted decisively and imprisoned the leaders, which resulted
in the minor loss of life. The deaths of a number of leaders in prison caused the cult to
die out.12 However, magical thinking was to resurface again.

October, 1987, witnessed the invasion of Uganda by a Voudon priestess,
Alice Lakwena, with an army of six thousand, called the Holy Spirit Movement. Many in the
army were soldiers driven out of Uganda after their military government was overthrown by
the National Resistance Army. Lakwena smeared her followers with an ointment to grant them
protection from bullets. Her poorly armed warriors threw themselves into battle launching
suicide attacks. Lakwena combined Christianity with African sorcery and told Holy Spirit
troops that their rocks and sticks, when thrown at the enemy, would explode like grenades.13
According to Associated Press and Reuters dispatches, several thousand of her loyal
followers were mowed down by modern arms, with local Ugandans running into the streets to
help the military kill the hapless, crudely armed Holy Spirit warriors. Fortunately, in
December, 1987, Lakwena was arrested by Kenyan authorities at their border, as she fled
Uganda. This put an end to her nearly year-long campaign that convinced thousands that
spirits spoke to her. Of special interest are reports that Lakwena kept a heavily armed
bodyguard with her at all times, but armed her suicide warriors only with rocks, sticks,
and a dab of magic ointment on their chests!14 The prophetess seemed to favor
the AK-47, not her own magical abilities.

A belief in magical arts and the powers of sorcerers has led to the
demise of many African armies. The tragic lessons of the nineteenth and the twentieth
centuries are ignored by many in modern Africa. On a continent where superstition and
magical thinking die hard, countless local sorcerers are fully employed and fear has
reigned supreme. Liberty can't flourish in lands where the irrational is deeply rooted. I
understand now President Kenyatta's speech, in 1968. when he asked a crowd of forty
thousand Kenyans to stop the practice of witchcraft. The speech was made after the mass
execution of fifteen people at Fort Victoria, because they had feasted on human body
parts, believed to give them a sorcerer's power.15 It appears that the use of
magic water and oils aren't the only excesses of magical thinking.

End Notes

Smith, George Ivan, The Ghosts of Kampala: The Rise and
Fall of Idi Amin Dada, New York: St. Martin's Press, 1980, pp. 40-41.

Richard Petraitis teaches at Riverside Brookfield, Illinois, High School. He has
taught a class on pseudoscience and the debunking of the paranormal. His cover article,
"The Shamans of Suburbia," was published in the May 1997 issue of The REALL News.